Paintings, Drawings and Photographs by Barbara Field (except where noted otherwise.)
New stuff very often.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

My Lucky Stripes

I live in a place that is noteworthy for its lack of remarkable weather, but these past couple of weeks we've had some. When I went out in back this morning, I was sprinkled on. Then there was a rainbow in the west. Rainbows are always opposite the sun, but, it my experience, usually in the afternoon. Here's a little slice of my rainbow.

And as if that weren't cool enough, I was inspecting my plants for signs of bug life, and I saw something I've never seen in my yard, but earnestly hoped for: a monarch butterfly's child. I rubbed my eyes, and it was still there. I snapped a picture.

A little later this morning, I went to the South Pasadena Woodland and Wildlife Park to paint. It took other painters a while to show up, and I didn't really want to paint alone. There's wildlife and then there's wildlife. After I set up and sketched, I realized I forgot my palette. I did have my tubes of paint though. I scavenged around my car and from the other painters and came up with something to stand in for my palette. I decided, since I had to squeeze out all new paint, I'd use colors I never use. I don't really recall how I even got them - they might have been giveaways. I chose the view of the backs of houses on the other side of the Arroyo. I really like my resulting painting; I especially like the freshness of the color.

6 comments:

That monarch baby is beautiful. That's a great photo that would translate into an amazing painting for your series. Those colors- pinks, oranges, yellows greens, and those stripes! You had a great morning.

ohhh I love that painting!! And that caterpillar too! I saw the double rainbow we had the other day. Got pics. It appeared to be to the east of me so not sure we're talking about the same rainbow, in fact it "appeared" to be almost above my house. The sky turned all yellow though, it looked like when as a kid in Kansas we had tornado warnings active.

I now have another place I need to visit some day, that park you mentioned.